Silent Menace
by AsianScaper
Summary: Crichton undergoes the worst torture yet. Lotsa mush about Aeryn, too.


**Title:** _Silent Menace_   
**Author:** AsianScaper   
**Disclaimer:** Farscape and its characters are owned by Jim Henson, The Hallmark Network, and the Sci-Fi Channel. No infringement is intended.   
**Rating:** G   
**Category:** Drama   
**Feedback:** Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to asianscaper@edsamail.com.ph   
**Summary:** Crichton undergoes the worst torture yet. Lotsa mush about Aeryn, too.   
**Spoilers:** None   
**Archiving:** I'd be honored to have this posted wherever you fellow Scapers wish. Though, I'd appreciate it very much if you could drop me a line and tell me where it's at.   
**Dedication:** =P To the people who inspired this work and to all the shippers out there.   
**Author's Note:** I started this a long time ago and decided to continue. Please read and review! It's a story in progress and I'm not sure if any of you would like it. Even the title's not final. It'll come slow though not steady since only a few chosen things inspire me to write but I _will_ try to finish it. Once I get the final draft, I'll squeeze it into one file. I need your help to prod me onward. I need your ideas! Other than that, enjoy! Hope you like it! And tell me if you do *grin*.

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With soft angel eyes that belied their heavenly state, her breath brushed his cheek like the gentle stroke of a sculptor's hand against the clay idol of his rampant imagination. Softly her words of untouched steel stroked the air around him and he could hear the uncertainty in the constant riddle of her breathing. Words touched and waved their silvery wings to chant brief breaths of fire and ice, spewing love like common pennies, scarce in hatred like the sole meal of the hungry beggar. 

Hands paid homage before her altar and brushed the pale cheeks of unblemished petals. "Good Lord, Aeryn," was his hoarse, unbelieving whisper. "You're _alive_…" 

And he woke from the brief joy of this untamed dream… 

==========   
Part I.   
========== 

Breathe… 

The firm clasp of slumber strangled his breath for a moment and there was one name that he had favored above others that now rose like a setting sun from the depths of the underworld. 

_Aeryn?_

Breathe… 

Nothing. Just the familiar knife that struck at the pit of his stomach, leaving the stinging pain of a silent, deadly laceration. 

Breathe… 

Deadly indeed, for the familiar, unrelenting pain fought for the honorable seat at the banquet laden with platters of his sorrow. As it fought with the spiked bracelets of the rude noble, blue eyes dug at the wells of time and liquid sprung at the summoning of the laughing menace called Memory. 

The flood filled the empty desert of his tormented soul and his clear, blue eyes trickled with streams of a new creation, severe in its riotous flow, unforgiving in all aspects like the tide as it smashes against the rocks with anger and regret, molding the surface to his own marionette which moaned in its agony. 

He fought with the desperation of a man fighting for his sanity and he fought with a fierceness that scared even him. Loss was indeed frightful but the infinite loss that was death even more so. He did not wish to die. Not yet. Not when his piece of a flying, torn soul was floating to be found in some hidden rock across eons and eons of suffering. 

_Aeryn…you must be alive. You have to be. How in the frelling universe am I supposed to keep going?_

"Commander? Commander…" Pilot called from over the comm., waking him from the mirthless vision of a nightmare. "We found a signal on one of Aius' moons." 

His voice trembled at the dire implications of this statement. "I-is it safe?" 

"Yes, Commander." 

There was silence, as if the possibilities had suddenly widened its horizon. The freedom of it halted words from his mouth for a moment, but just a moment. "Good, good. We'll, ah, we'll go down and have a look. I'll take D'argo with me on the transport." 

"Are you sure, Commander?" Pilot asked, if not hesitantly. Concern covered his voice like honey and this voice that reminded Crichton of children, made the constant blight within him boil in the madness he was only beginning to rectify. "Your state might impede your progress. You are still very weak." 

"Nonsense, Pilot," Crichton said. "I don't want to sit around doing nothing while Aeryn's out there suffering for all our sakes." 

The sigh that followed was Pilot's. "Of course, Commander. I meant no offense." 

"None taken." 

Crichton stood from his bed, gathering the leather coat that lay glumly beside him. His boots still covered his feet. Yesterday seemed so far away and he had remembered the complete exhaustion in fighting Peacekeepers single-handedly when he had simply collapsed in his bed, unable even to open his eyes or raise his hands to undo his clothing. 

The glaring light of a beam of laser had glanced at his thigh and had left a gaping red wound that hurt more than it bled yet still again, this temporary death called Sleep felt more like a dream than a state of rest and his last meal was not as tangible as it had once been. 

Limping quietly against the silent corridors of Moya's sleeping quarters, he could hear the groan of the big leviathan, her life pulsing with the rhythm of a star and the sound of a heartbeat. 

But within the soft, warm breeze that told of her breathing was the constant whimper of a lament. Crichton offered what he thought he could not. "Moya," he whispered, putting his hand against the golden, solid, yet living wall. "I know you can hear me." He paused to find that the tears he thought would come at more grievous times were sliding against his cheek, leaving streaks of silver that blemished his white skin. "I'm so weak," he scolded himself, utterly unfazed even for a broken man. "We're going to find her, you hear me? I'm going to find her, even if it kills me." 

Moya's answer came with the brief pulse of ephemeral warmth that caressed his fingers. "I knew you'd understand," he whispered gratefully. 

The shadows shifted, arguing their sentiments at his hunched figure and already, he could feel their cold fingers stroking his heart, his soul, his very mind that had strangled hope with impunity. As tears limped across the smooth hillside of his cheeks, he lifted his hand from the shell of Moya's wall that was dull in color from the unwarranted pain within. Moya had known Aeryn longer than he ever had but her loss, ironically, was one that affected a mere human being more than it did this living ship. 

He knew that Moya would understand but somehow, in his blindness to her sympathy as he searched with the remaining pieces of a soul wrenched by the unbeatable lack of Aeryn's presence, he had to be sure. There were many things he would never have believed, Aeryn's loss most especially. The great adherence to this truth by a creature greater than he was hard to deny. Wincing, he felt his nails dig into his flesh, his hands acting outside his control. 

Smiling, he watched as his fingers bathed joyously in blood. Sorrow was his ally now, for happiness had fled and madness, grief's hidden companion, was gleefully painting the cover of reason with a thick, noxious color of black. 

"Crichton." 

The profound depth of D'argo's voice picked up Crichton's gnarled staff of defeat and raised it up for all to see. D'argo's eyes watched him with pity and his lips were pursed with the effort of restraining his complaints. His hazel beard was bristling in contempt at seeing a strong man like Crichton such as he had never seen him before, in a state of perpetual regret that had sucked all flesh from his bones. Breathing with the capacity of a small gale, he waited for the human to face him. 

D'argo was at a loss for words but not of expression. His brows furrowed at the sight of moist cheeks and the self-afflicted wound that was still bleeding into Moya's burnished floors with insistence. He was clutching his qualta blade in defense of his own fortress that spoke of eternal strength that in truth was but fleeting in its might. Crichton's soft angles of innocence bespoke of dread and tragedy and they provided a strong boldness that threatened D'argo's own sanity. 

D'argo, too, had lost a friend but his loss amounted to nothing beside this man's pain. 

"We're leaving," was Crichton's blunt response, limping and forcefully colliding into D'argo's arm. 

With Crichton but a few feet ahead, D'argo watched the faltering back that had once been dignified in stature had it not been for the burden apparent there. It had been placed between the once-muscular build of his shoulders and he did not walk that youthful stride of confidence D'argo was so used to competing with. 

The ordeal of years and years of affliction was pulling Crichton's steady walk into a torturous haul that spoke sadly of a losing struggle to live. Crichton had the better part of his human soul stolen by a some cruel thief and he was wasting away in a manner so terrifying that D'argo was willing to knock him unconscious and nurse him back to health with supplements from Zhaan's table. 

But the thought was unthinkable. He would not allow Crichton to be treated like a child if there was mettle to be seen. If a man could but grasp his own worth, then he would indeed live forever. 

The huge Luxan broke into a long stride, until he came side by side the limp, broken figure. The Luxan was relieved to find the fire of determination in those acrid eyes of unsharpened blue. 

A storm…a storm wrought from the multitudes of pain…none more potent that this. A dead man walking… 

The thought was comforting in its shallowness because even then, Crichton was worse than dead. The pale skin and empty gaze was evidence. 

"Do you have a plan?" D'argo asked quietly, whispering at the wake of a burning funeral pyre. 

"A plan?" Crichton swallowed. "No…no plan, big guy. Just a feeling and her face. Just her face…" 

A hint of a cruel smile graced his lips and then…nothing more. 

"No plan?" The Luxan rounded on him, forcing the human to halt and stare at him with eyes that haunted the inner recesses of his Luxan soul. He would dream of drowning in an ocean of blue for nights to come even as the warrior in him willed to deny the human anything. "I will not allow you to get killed because of a…a feeling!" 

"You…you're right." Crichton's expression fell and it plunged into such darkness that at once, D'argo almost regretted his reproach. "B-but I have to go, D'argo. I have to go." 

Breathing heavily and with fondness that was scarce within his expression, D'argo put his hands on Crichton's shoulders. Those palms engulfed the human's haggard frame, at once warm in its concern yet firm in conviction. But they were gentle with the fear of a friend's plight. He had wondered greatly at the ability for this man to even walk. The heartache he must have felt was brusque and unforgiving, insanely sharpened to a glittering, cruel edge. 

"I will not allow you to go, Crichton," D'argo said, mercilessly speaking even as those blue seas raged insistently. "It is a trap, you hear? If you go, then there would be two of you." 

"I cannot leave her." 

"I can't leave her either! None of us can! You will die an honorable death if you descend into that accursed planet but I assure you, your death will be in vain. She will still live and she will still suffer and you will be dead. Dead, you hear me?" 

Silence ensued once again; silence too seeped from Crichton's lips in sighs of relief. 

It was D'argo who shattered the hushed tranquility of a fleeting wish to dream again, to live again. "Live and fight, old friend. Live and fight. You will not go, not with that wound, with that disposition. You are weak. You will not live." 

The old Crichton chuckled softly, humor resolving to peek once more and gain sunlight. "Yes, mother." 

Rolling his eyes, the Luxan freed him from his grasp and watched as the decision pranced in the way Crichton's hand tapped ceaselessly against his other arm. 

"All right." 

_Thank the gods! If I have to humor him, I will. Humans!_

"Good. Now, you will remain with Moya until that wound has healed and you will remain until you feel strong enough to handle a gun without dropping it." 

The man nodded. "And you will eat," D'argo added, noticing, as he had done countless times these past few days, the sunken cheeks and denounced cheer of health. 

Crichton, despite the angry urge of his heart to free himself from this place of memories and time, had his stomach begging him for nourishment. He had denied all else everything…but his health could not wait. 

He could look for solace in the empty void of crumbs; he consoled himself, those crumpled bits dotting the vast darkness of a dark plate. He smiled once more, degraded into thinking that sorrow would flee, truly flee at the face of a mere vision. Reality was truly real so he lived in silent retreat, covering the insane desire to flee, to flee and fight, to fight for visions that more often than not, fled as well as they implored for help. 

The irony of it made him laugh into the emptiness. No one would be there to listen to him. 

Already, he had forgotten about his companion. 

D'argo had quietly endured the rising lunacy in this lost man and already, he was mourning the loss of another friend, of another existence in this enclosed world called home. Crichton was fading even as he spoke…taking with him the dire blanket of false hopes and dreams that could never be reached without a veritable hand. 

==========   
Part II.   
========== 

_Take my hand…there…now look…_

There was a hint of wonder in his eyes and then, his face was flooded with a fleeting joy. Always, there had been something to look at, to grasp and hold dear to his heart. Always, there seemed to be hope that lasted beyond all hope and it helped him endure. The song of laughter echoed in his ears, an ancient ballad that sang of love and joy, all silent witnesses to his suffering. All servants of his better half and reluctant muses to the worse, which was all that remained of him. 

_Shut up, Crichton…_

She laughed, being insolent at best. But she still laughed and the smell of home reached his senses, titillating all but his touch. How he longed to hold the darkness that was her hair and how he wished that vials could hold laughter, and jars, the sound of laughter. Then, he could open them at will and bask in the warmth of it all. Home. All of it home. 

_Erpling. Oh, sorry. Earthling. Your people have such pathetic names…_

Yes. That's what she called him but it mattered little if she called him an idiot for every time she mentioned his name. Affection coated all that she ever said to him; even the harshest of words held in it a certain charm that even she would effortlessly dismiss. 

_John!_

Oh…his name upon her tongue would have been shining diamonds to his eyes. The blemish his own name held, those days when he drove through the night full of drink, cursing at the top of his lungs, cursing his own name if need be- all that would be washed away in a flood of fervor. All of it. 

And his already burdened shoulders were heavier still. 

"John." Zhaan watched the human closely, aching to know the pain that divided his heart, wanting quite badly to heal his ailment. "Lie down." 

Crichton struck intense sorrow into Zhaan's soul as he turned to her and implored, with every movement of his worn body. 

"I cannot rest, Zhaan. I must see her." 

"You will not see her if you are dead, John," she told him reasonably, filling bulbous liquid into what looked like a syringe. 

"I feel dead Zhaan. It wouldn't matter." 

A sigh followed his statement. Zhaan fought hard against the certainty that he was indeed worse than dead but in seeing the furrows of anger and regret, she knew that something very human still lurked under those brows. 

Zhaan gently inserted a needle into his flesh, filling his blood with supplements that she knew would never help if his mind had depleted itself of all things meaningful. She was frustrated to the point that she did not notice him flinch as she pulled it out forcefully. 

She muttered a rather absurd, "Sorry" before finally pushing his head towards the pillow. His body followed quite sadly after him and even as he stared into the ceiling, he did not blink. 

"Sleep," the Delvian ordered. 

Crichton glared at her, unable even to laugh at the flippant remark that ensued. 

"Sleep or I'll make you regret that you didn't." 

The human was stubborn by nature and he simply shifted his attention to the ceiling once more. Zhaan shook her head and dimmed the lights to the room. Even as she left, Crichton had not closed his eyes. 

But he blinked. 

He heard her voice whisper into his ears. 

_Don't cry._

And a tear fell from his cheek. 

==========   
Part III.   
========== 

The voice screamed for him to return, that he may journey once more and conclude the story of his pain. 

"Crichton, wake up." 

Eyes shot open to greet the glare of a new light. A light that did not flicker and faint within the darkness of his dreams and he saw faces that few would see the beauty to his definition of humane. 

"Hello, Old Man," the young, blue fellow was saying. 

"Hello, Chi…" The name that made him smile in its naivete and frown in its trickery. "W-where's A-aeryn?" 

"Pitiful," D'argo spat from behind the white-haired girl. But Crichton did not care for pity, directed as it was to him. He merely stared at the huge bastion that was D'argo's body and shifted his eyes that he may behold the extent of the medical bay. 

His eyes touched the luster of metal instruments atop a counter not three feet away from him, his fingers twitched to hold the sheets that whispered not cotton nor silk but synthetic material made from different elements that he had no knowledge of. His nose absorbed all smells of sedative and herbs that were more foreign than they were effective. Groaning as he tried to move but failed, another figure flashed her bright colors. 

The blue-skinned lady passed over his sight, her face smooth and her hues as exotic and rich as any sky on his planet Earth. He breathed the air and there was her scent, as rich and as titillating as he had remembered it. 

Aeryn. Aeryn had always reminded him of Earth. Her laugh, her smile, her tears that had once cooled his cheeks. Oh, how he wished for them, that they may fill his empty flask with her immovable spirit. 

"Wha-what are you all doing in h-here?" His voice was faltering from the lack of strength dominating his heart. 

"Fixing you," Chiana replied in a heartbeat. "We're going to save Aeryn, with you, not without you. You really are old, Old Man." Her eyes seemed to smile at him, calling with an alluring voice at the strength that lay dormant within him. 

"Can't you fix him any faster?" she asked Zhaan, her head moving in that odd, rather adorable way which either unnerved him or reminded him that Chi was Chi. 

"I am 'fixing' him to the best of my ability. I cannot make a dead man walk," Zhaan shot back, her hands moving to press another vitamin-laden needle into Crichton's skin. 

The human flinched, fully aware of the pain, fully aware that in some way or another, he owed them his passion for living, so he closed his eyes. 

"Don't tell me he's sleeping," D'argo remarked. "I thought you-" 

"I'm awake, D'argo. Just resting my eyes. Get it over with, Blue." Crichton's voice was odd in its mettle, rising to a pitch that told of belief rising from the ruins of disbelief. "We'll find Aeryn. We have to…if I am to continue living." 

D'argo shifted. "No promises, I suppose." 

"Yes," Crichton said. "No promises. Get the transport ready." His eyes opened. "We're going to the planet." 

The Luxan glared at the human and then his expression inquired for Zhaan's approval. The blue Delvian shrugged but her smile spoke of truth. 

"If you are to heal this man, you must let him suffer. Go ahead. I won't stop you." 

Chiana sought to stare at the human, taking in the dire expression of mixed shades of grief, and seeking to contemplate this sorrow by marking it as her own. She succeeded very little in imitating him and suddenly, was not eager to do so. 

"D'argo," she whispered, her voice trembling. 

His deep voice made warm blankets wrap her protectively, like a barrier for the knife that had floated so easily above their heads. "What is it?" 

"How do we tell him she's dead?" 

"His soul knows, his body doesn't and his body will only stop when his soul stops believing." D'argo's eyes shifted, nervous and utterly helpless. "When that happens, we have lost him forever." 

Chiana turned to Crichton, seeing, not for the first time, the spindly hands of Death's property, gentle coaxing the soul from the shattered shell. She choked down a sob that D'argo had thought better not to hear for they, too, were going down with him. 

__________

_To be Continued..._


End file.
